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Monday, 19 May 2008 |
WAEDC director seeks two-prong approach to attract businesses
By WILLIAM LANEY
Managing Editor
When potential prospectors are seeking a location for a manufacturing site, a local economic development administrator hopes their boring through information lands them in Wapakoneta, or at least Auglaize County.
Wapakoneta Area Economic Development Council (WAEDC) Executive Director Greg Myers recently said collaborative efforts between economic development leaders in Auglaize County is helping forge a unified front.
Myers and St. Marys Industrial and Commercial Development Manager Todd Fleagle recently attended a regional meeting in Sidney regarding Auglaize County’s participating in a Dayton economic development coalition.
Myers discussed with WAEDC board members the benefits of aligning with a coalition either
from Dayton or Toledo. Wapakoneta and other municipalities in Auglaize County are currently not aligned with a regional coalition, which could hamper future economic development efforts, Myers said.
“It is becoming more apparent that for economic development purposes that these site consultants first choose a country, then they choose a region within a country, then they start to narrow it down to two or three states, and finally they began to look at the regions within a state,” Myers told the Wapakoneta Daily News. “If a county is not affiliated with a region it may be overlooked because once you get to Ohio that drill down is to regions first and if we are not within a region that they would be looking at then we might not be seen at all.”
With Auglaize County and municipalities within the county, including Wapakoneta, aligned with a regional coalition such as one in Dayton, Myers said that should raise the awareness of Wapakoneta to end-users and site consultants.
“They will provide us with name recognition, site recognition within a regional context, so if an end-user or a site consultant is looking at Ohio and looking at Ohio’s regions we would pop up under the Dayton region,” Myers said, “where now we would show under no region.”
Myers also revealed county economic development leaders have long-term plans for a new regional approach.
Ohio Department of Development officials divided the Buckeye State into 12 economic development regions, of which Auglaize County is part of Region 3. Some of those regions have materials developed by a private organization, paid through economic development councils that have banded together.
Myers said this approach fits in nicely with the state’s Department of Development philosophy. The state promotes the entire state while providing technical assistance to regions, but state officials leave promotion of each region to that specific region.
This is so state officials cannot be accused of being partial to any city or region in the state, the WAEDC executive director said.
A two-prong approach is the strategy being proposed by Myers.
“My concern is that we try to affiliate ourselves with an existing regional group and then the long-term goal would be to create a regional group in west-central Ohio between Dayton and Toledo,” Myers said. “It could be made up of those counties that make up Region 3 with the Ohio Department of Development.
“That will take time to do,” he said, “so in the short-term Dayton seems to make the most sense.” |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 20 May 2008 )
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